In business today, advertisers create and disseminate promotions, advertisements, and/or other materials to convey information about various goods or services with which they are associated. Such goods or services include products, companies, brands, public services, events, and causes. Additionally, advertisements and/or promotions may contain information in the form of incentives to influence the behavior of the person or entity viewing the promotion. For example, a coupon, which provides a discount for the purchase of an item, may influence a consumer to purchase the item.
Advertisers use promotions or other advertisements for a variety of reasons, including by way of example only, and not by way of limitation: (1) building awareness of a product or service that is being promoted; (2) providing information to persons or entities considering a purchase; (3) developing a preference for the product or service that the advertiser is promoting in a person or entity; (4) developing incentives for a person or entity to encourage them to make a purchase or engage in a service; and/or (5) building loyalty in a person or entity for what the advertisement is promoting.
Advertisers place promotions or other advertisement in locations where they are viewed (and hopefully absorbed) by other persons or entities. These locations can be both physical and/or virtual (i.e., off-line and/or on-line). For example, and not by limitation, such locations include television, newspapers, magazines, and the Internet. These advertisements or promotions can be directed regionally, according to cities, counties, states, or countries in which they are placed.
Additionally, a wide variety of different mediums may be utilized for advertising. In this sense, the medium is defined as the form in which the advertisement or promotion appears or is rendered. For example, and not by way of limitation, selected mediums can include: a printed page, a television commercial, a web site, a computer file, a computer image, a computer display, a magazine page, a billboard, or a mailing. Advertisers choose specific mediums and locations for the placement of their advertisements in order to attempt to expose the advertisement to an intended audience. For example, a marketer of female cosmetics may choose to build awareness for a new line of female cosmetics by placing an advertisement in a magazine that has a large readership of females.
Frequently, advertisers desire to target their promotions to the specific demographics of users. For example, and not by way of limitation, targeted demographic selections can include: gender, household income, age, geographic region, or language. Additionally, some advertisers desire to further target their promotions to specific individuals who meet particular criteria. In this regard, “targeting” is a technique that advertisers use to attempt to increase the effectiveness of an advertisement. Targeting allows advertisements to be directed or focused towards specific individuals or groups who are likely to be interested in, or influenced by, the advertisement. Through the use of targeted advertising, an advertiser can hopefully reduce the expense of disseminating advertisements to uninterested parties. In this manner, the overall effectiveness and efficiency of an advertising campaign can be increased due to the reduction in cost from decreased dissemination of advertisements to uninterested parties.
Various methods of advertising and/or promoting have associated advantages and drawbacks. Thus, advertisers are often inclined to pay professional advertising organizations, entities, and individuals to target and dispense their advertisements, as they seek more effective mediums, locations, and techniques for targeting, placing, and measuring the effectiveness of promotions. The advertisements and/or promotions that are suggested or used by these entities typically include expensive media or printed materials that have high distribution costs associated with them. Even Internet-based promotions, which tend to be quite efficient, still have high costs associated with them, since popular web sites often charge a premium on a per-impression basis for placing banners or links on their web pages. Further, while Internet use has increased, it is desirable to provide a form of promotional advertisement that is more readily viewed by the consuming public without having to log on to a computer.
To date, no completely satisfactory targeted marketing technique has been universally accepted and adopted. As such, advertising and marketing personnel are constantly seeking out new approaches for desirable targeted marketing. Accordingly, those skilled in the art have long recognized the need for a system and method to provide a form of targeted promotional advertisement that is readily viewed by a profiled portion of the public. This invention clearly addresses these and other needs.